Cristiano da Matta is the latest in a string of CART champions to head to Formula One. He follows Michael Andretti, Jacques Villeneuve, Alex Zanardi and Juan Pablo Montoya, all of whom had great success in CART but vastly different amounts of success in F1.

Here's a look back at the F1 careers of the CART champs and what went right ... or wrong.

	Andretti

Michael Andretti
Ask just about anybody in the F1 paddock why Andretti's F1 career failed and the first thing they will say is: "He didn't come and live in Europe."

When Mario Andretti raced in F1 he continued to live in Nazareth, Pa., and he commuted to races. Michael did the same thing and, in reality, it was a pretty comfortable way to go thanks to private jets and the Concorde. But the problem was that people perceived (wrongly I believe) that this meant Michael didn't have the commitment to succeed in F1 and he treated it like a part-time job.

Andretti joined the McLaren Ford team in 1993 after winning a CART championship and 27 races in that series.

"I think he can win Grands Prix," McLaren boss Ron Dennis said when he signed Andretti. But the pair never even made it to the end of the season.

So what went wrong?

A lack of track time ended up being a major problem. Mechanical glitches, especially with McLaren's complicated electronics and active suspension, along with rain limited Andretti's preseason testing.

Once the season got underway, Andretti was hampered by the new rules that limited the number of tires and laps allowed to each driver during practice, plus there were new limits on testing between races as well. Furthermore, even though Andretti told the team he was willing to test anytime, it was usually more convenient to use test driver Mika Hakkinen, who was always close at hand.

Early in the season, Andretti qualified fifth in Brazil and sixth in the European Grand Prix, only to crash out of both races. He crashed in South Africa as well. Andretti later admitted he was being too aggressive, but mechanical problems played a major role in his struggles as well.

"I started feeling, 'OK, Ron (Dennis) is losing confidence in me,'" Andretti told author Tim Considine.

There is no doubt that the 1993 McLaren Ford wasn't the best car the team had produced. Indeed, although the brilliant Ayrton Senna managed to win five times with it in 1993, the team was heading for a slump it wouldn't get out of until 1997.

Andretti finally got a fifth-place finish in Spain and a sixth in France.

Dennis was anxious to give Hakkinen a chance in 1993 and started hinting to Andretti that the American wouldn't be needed in 1994.

The highlight of Andretti's short F1 career came at Monza, where he finished third in the Italian Grand Prix. That was his 13th and final race. Hakkinen took over Andretti's seat for the remaining races in 1993 and the latter headed back to continue his stellar career in CART.

	Villeneuve

Jacques Villeneuve
Villeneuve's first F1 season could not have been more different that Andretti's. Villeneuve arrived in F1 in 1996 having won the CART title and Indy 500 in 1995.

The Canadian threw himself into his new role and completed nearly 5,000 miles of testing prior to making his F1 debut.

Having won championships in 1992 and '93, the Williams Renault team was in peak form. Villeneuve won the pole in his first race and would have won, but he had to slow because of an engine problem. Still, he finished second behind teammate Damon Hill. Villeneuve won in his fourth start and took three more victories in 1996. He was in contention for the championship right up to the final race, where he lost the title to Hill.

Villeneuve then dominated in 1997, earning 10 poles and seven victories on his way to becoming the first Canadian to win the championship.

The detractors say Villeneuve was in the best car at the time. He sure was. It's a mark of a great driver to be in the right car at the right time. In 1998, Williams began heading into a slump (which Zanardi would unfortunately be part of). After three seasons with Williams, Villeneuve joined the new British American Racing team in 1999.

Villeneuve has given his all at BAR (he consistently has been rated as one of the top-10 F1 drivers), but he has not won since 1997.

	Zanardi

Alex Zanardi
"The whole Zanardi business is still a bit of a mystery to us," team owner Frank Williams says of Zanardi's failed attempt to return to F1.

The Williams team loves aggressive hard-charging drivers, and in his three seasons in CART, Zanardi proved to just such a driver. Zanardi didn't have much luck in his first stint in F1 (he ran in 25 events between 1991 and '94), but he really blossomed in CART. After winning two CART titles and 14 races, and pulling off some stunning overtaking maneuvers, Zanardi headed back to F1 with a two-year contract with Williams.

Right from the start, however, Zanardi didn't feel comfortable with the modern F1 car's knife-edged handling that is very twitchy with its grooved tires and lack of downforce. Zanardi couldn't throw a F1 car around like a CART car, or even a 1994 era F1 car.

"These F1 cars are different to the ones I drove back in '94," Zanardi said after his first tests with Williams. "I am driving the best I can, but I'm still not fast enough."

Zanardi continued to struggle all season and failed to score a point. His teammate, Ralf Schumacher, meanwhile, had 11 top-six finishes and finished sixth in the standings.

But if there was any bad luck in the team it seemed to fall on Zanardi. In the Italian GP, for example, he was running fourth ahead of his teammate (who would go on to finish second) when he had to slow because the floor of his car started to come loose. Weird things happened as well, like in Monaco where Zanardi had a bolt fastening in the car's seat break.

He needed track time but wasn't getting it.

"We have let Alex down more often than he has let us down," Patrick Head said halfway through the 1999 season.

In the end, Zanardi and Williams split after one season, and that was the end of Zanardi's F1 career.

"We never got the best out of him, and consequently he couldn't get the best out of himself," Williams said. "He wasn't in the world's best Grand Prix car, either."

	Montoya

Juan Pablo Montoya
Like his predecessors, Montoya earned a reputation as being a hard-charger in CART where he won the championship in 2000. Williams wasn't taking a real gamble when it signed Montoya, because he had already worked as a F1 tester for them, plus he had won a Formula 3000 title.

Montoya admits to be being very disappointed when Williams opted for Zanardi instead of him in 1999. Yet Montoya later realized how much he learned in his two seasons in CART -- not only about driving, but also about working with a large team and how to be patient when times are tough.

Like his predecessors, Montoya also found it took time to adapt from the way a CART car handled to the way a F1 car moved. He had plenty of preseason testing, but also had mechanical problems and made errors in the early part of the season.

He qualified 11th for his debut and retired with an engine problem. He spun off in Malaysia. In Brazil, he pulled off a stunning pass on Michael Schumacher to take the lead only to collide with Jos Verstappen.

It wasn't until the fifth race of 2001 that Montoya finally made it into the points with a second-place run in Spain. Of Montoya's speed there can be no question. He won the pole three times in his rookie season and seven times in 2002. The problem has been, for both Montoya and his team, to translate those poles into victories. He won the Italian Grand Prix in 2001, but didn't win in 2002. Still, he finished third in the points in his second season.

In 2003, three CART champs will be competing in F1 as da Matta joins Montoya and Villeneuve. It is going to be interesting to see how CART's latest star fares in the new world of F1.

Dan Knutson covers Formula One for National Speed Sport News.